When I heard Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, suggest that NATO should consider allowing Ukraine to officially strike targets in Russia with NATO weapons (1,2), I was reminded of NATO’s role in Libya.

This article presents a short reminder of how NATO was a pivotal player in the destruction of Moammar Gaddafi’s Libya in 2011. A destruction from which the country still has not recovered.

UN NO FLY ZONE RESOLUTION 1973 (March 17, 2011)
It is interesting to note that the main reason to adopt resolution 1973 on Libya in 2011 was the protection of civilians in Libya. During times when a country like Israel is committing a gross and obvious genocide on the people in Gaza (3), it speaks of a great hypocrisy that despite the killing of civilians by the thousands in Gaza the United Nations are not even considering a No Fly Zone for Israel. Many are even defending the country’s crimes.

But Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi was not a Benjamin Netanyahu. He was no friend of the Deep State and was therefore a legitimate target. On March 17, 2011 the Security Council passed resolution 1973 (4) (with five nations abstaining: China, India, Brazil, Germany and Russia).

This resolution called for a No Fly Zone over the territory of Libya in order to prevent the Libyan forces from allegedly attacking their own civilians. NATO volunteered to enforce this No Fly Zone. Below you can hear the then Secretary General of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen announce NATO’s willingness to participate.

HOW THE RESOLUTION WAS USED TO COMPLETELY DESTROY THE LEGITIMATE ARMY AND GOVERNMENT STRUCTURES OF GADDAFI’S LIBYA
NATO reacted strongly and swiftly, but it didn’t take them long to openly support the so-called Rebels in their fight against the legitimate government of Libya. NATO changed from an enforcer of a no fly zone into the enemy of the Libyan Army, ultimately responsible for the death of its leader in October 2021 (6-8). Putin was already quite outspoken of the way NATO treated both Gaddafi and the state of Libya.

SOME REFLECTIONS
I think we should all be alarmed when a Secretary General of this organization calls for the use of NATO weapons on Russian territory. NATO has proven to be no trustworthy, ethical organization. They can also be regarded as one of the main culprits for the war in Ukraine since they completely neglected the rightful worries of Russia about an expanding NATO into Ukraine (11).

FOOTNOTES
(1) NATO Calls for using NATO weapons to strike targets inside of Russian territory
(2) Italy opposes Stoltenberg on using Western weapons against targets in Russia
(3) A list of 11,000 Children killed by Israel in Gaza (many more children were killed since this list was established in February 2024)
(4) United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973
(5) NATO Secretary General statement following the UNSCR 1973 on Libya (w/subtitles)
(6) Here’s a quote from NATO Destroyed Libya in 2011; Storm Daniel Came to Sweep Up the Remains: The Thirty-Eighth Newsletter
“Instead of allowing an African Union-led peace plan to take place, NATO began a bombardment of 9,600 strikes on Libyan targets, with special emphasis on state institutions. Later, when the UN asked NATO to account for the damage it had done, NATO’s legal advisor Peter Olson wrote that there was no need for an investigation, since ‘NATO did not deliberately target civilians and did not commit war crimes in Libya’. There was no interest in the wilful destruction of crucial Libyan state infrastructure, which has never been rebuilt and whose absence is key to understanding the carnage in Derna.

NATO’s destruction of Libya set in motion a chain of events: the collapse of the Libyan state; the civil war, which continues to this day; the dispersal of Islamic radicals across northern Africa and into the Sahel region, whose decade-long destabilisation has resulted in a series of coups from Burkina Faso to Niger. This has subsequently created new migration routes toward Europe and led to the deaths of migrants in both the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea as well as an unprecedented scale of human trafficking operations in the region. Add to this list of dangers not only the deaths in Derna, and certainly the deaths from Storm Daniel, but also casualties of a war from which the Libyan people have never recovered.”
(7) Immigrants speak out: ”NATO has destroyed our lives in Libya” (April 4, 2011)
(8) https://x.com/General_Somto/status/1755908790027768150
(9) “Who gave NATO right to kill Gaddafi?”: Putin
(10) https://x.com/DerbyChrisW/status/1340791614093074435
(11) NATO’S Expansion to the East and the War in Ukraine


Image is from https://finalcall.com/artman/publish/world_news_3/article_8246.shtml